Method and apparatus for producing hollow articles made of injection moulded plastic material

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for producing hollow articles made of injection moulded plastic material by a mould having a die within which there is inserted a core, and at least one injector including a pin valve displaceable between a closing position and an opening position for injecting the pressurized plastic material into a space comprised between the die and the core. During the injection, any flexural deflection of the core is detected and the pin valve of the or of each injector is displaced in a controlled fashion to adjust a pressure and a flow rate of the injected plastic material, so as to reduce or eliminate such deflection of the core.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 16/133,109filed on Sep. 17, 2018, and claims priority to Italian PatentApplication No. 102017000105306 filed on Sep. 20, 2017, the entiredisclosure of each of these applications is incorporated herein byreference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally regards the injection moulding ofplastic materials, and in particular it regards a method and anapparatus for the production of hollow articles made of injectionmoulded plastic material.

STATE OF THE ART

The injection moulding of hollow articles made of plastic material istypically carried out by means of a mould having a die defining a cavityinto which a core is inserted. At least one injector including a pinvalve displaceable between a closing position and an opening positioninjects the pressurised plastic material into the space comprisedbetween the mould and the core. The displacement of the pin valve of theinjector is carried out by a fluid or electrical actuator, in the secondcase for example by a rotary motor as described and illustrated indocument U.S. Pat. No. 9,102,085 on behalf of the Applicant.

In the injection moulding of hollow articles, particularly of theelongated shape and with thin wall, there arises the problem related tothe fact that during the step of filling the space comprised between themould and the core, the latter can be subjected to displacements orflexural deflections a due to unavoidable unbalancing of the injectedplastic material and acting in an unbalanced manner on one side and onthe opposite side of the core.

The displacement or deflection of the core causes several drawbacks suchas for example the possible breaking of the core, aesthetic defects ofthe moulded components, and above all structural defects of suchcomponents due to failure to meet the relative design nominalthicknesses requirements.

Moulding specialists currently use different sensors in the core and inthe die and limit injection based on the pressure delta betweenjuxtaposed sensors or on the maximum value achieved by a sensor.However, this has the sole purpose of avoiding damage during theinjection and post-injection step, e.g. due to the fact that thecomponent cannot be extracted, and the core deflection cannot becontrolled.

Over the years, the Applicant has designed and developed a servo-drivenobturation system, referred to as FLEXflow®, which guarantees a precisecontrol of the pressure and the flow of the injected material during themoulding process. In particular, the actuator of the or of each injectoris electronically controlled so as to adjust the position, the speed andthe acceleration of the pin valve in a programmable manner, so as toadjust the pressure and the flow rate of the injected plastic material.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to overcome the technical problemdefined above by applying and adapting the aforementioned servo-drivenobturation method to the injection moulding of hollow articles, in anefficient manner and such to eliminate the aforementioned drawbacks.

With the aim of attaining such object, the invention provides for,according to a first aspect, an injection moulding method of the typedefined at the beginning whose main characteristic lies in the fact thatduring the injection there is detected a flexural deflection of thecore, and the controlled displacement of the pin valve of the or of eachinjector and it is carried out by adjusting at least one among theposition, speed, acceleration and stroke of the pin valve up to reducingor eliminating such deflection.

With the aim of detecting the flexural deflection of the core, theinvention provides for measuring any deflection of the core, or theposition of the free end thereof, possibly in combination with thedetection of the pressure of the injected plastic material.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the injection of the plasticmaterial occurs by means of at least one pair of injectors located onopposite sides with respect to the core.

Due to this solution idea, during the step of the controlled filling ofthe space comprised between the die and the core, unbalancing and thusthe bending of core is eliminated, thus avoiding possible breaking andthus eliminating aesthetic and structural defects of the mouldedarticled. In particular, the design nominal thicknesses requirements canbe met precisely.

According to another aspect, the invention regards an apparatus for theimplementation of the method, essentially characterised in that itcomprises at least one sensor suitable to detect the flexural deflectionof the core during injection and connected to the electronic controlunit configured to perform the controlled displacement of the pin valveof the or of each injector by adjusting at least one among the position,speed, acceleration and stroke of the pin valve up to reducing oreliminating any deflection.

With the aim of implementing the invention, the moulding apparatus maycomprise one or more injection points, or one or more injectors, whosepin valve is actuated by a pneumatic, hydraulic or electrical actuator,and in which the core deflection detection can be carried out by meansof at least one deflection transducer of the base of the core and/orposition transducer of the free end of the core, possibly combined withthe pressure transducer of the injected plastic material. The positiontransducer, for example of the induction type or equivalent, can bepositioned in proximity of the free end of the core or on the die or inthe space comprised between the die and the core.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will now be described in detail, purely by way ofnon-limiting example, with reference to the attached drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a sectional and partial schematic view of an injectionmoulding apparatus according to an embodiment of the invention,

FIGS. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are diagrams exemplifying injection methods andrelative drawbacks according to the prior art,

FIGS. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are diagrams similar to those of FIG. 2-6 butregarding the invention, and

FIG. 12 is a schematic perspective view of an example of a hollowarticle obtained using the injection moulding method and apparatusaccording to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The following description refers to production by means of injectionmoulding of hollow articles made of plastic material such as the oneschematically represented in FIG. 12 and indicated with C: it is acontainer with elongated shape (for example length equivalent to 350 mm)and a thin wall (nominal thickness for example equivalent to 2 mm).

The recipient C is produced using an apparatus schematically representedin FIG. 1 , comprising a mould 1 having a cavity 2, a die 3, a core 4couplable with the die (3) to delimit a space corresponding to the shapeof the recipient C and a system for injecting the plastic material intosuch space.

The injection system typically comprises a hot runner or hot chamber 5supplied by a press and connected, in the case of the illustratedexample, to a pair of injectors 6 arranged on opposite sides withrespect to the cavity 2 of the mould 1. It should be observed that thenumber and arrangement of the injectors could be different from the oneillustrated in the example.

Each injector 6 comprises—in a per se known manner—a nozzle 7 in whichthere is axially mobile a pin valve 8 displaceable between a position offull closure and a position of maximum opening for the injection of thepressurised plastic material into the space comprised between the die 3and the core 4. The displacement of each pin valve 8 is controlled by arespective actuator 9, of the fluid or more conveniently of theelectrical type, for example of the rotary type, controlled by means ofan electronic control unit 10.

The control unit 10 is programmed so as to control each actuator 9, andthus each injector 6, so as to adjust the pressure and flow rate of theplastic material injected by it. The control may in particular providefor the adjustment of the position, speed, acceleration and stroke ofthe pin valve 8 during the filling step.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are diagrams showing the injection methods provided foraccording to the prior art for moulding articles such as the recipientC. Such methods do not provide for the aforementioned control of theinjectors by the electronic unit 10, hence the plastic material isinjected in the same manner, in terms of flow rate and pressure, by bothinjectors. In particular, the diagram of FIG. 2 (in which it isfictitiously indicated that the two injectors open at different timeswhereas they actually open simultaneously) shows the position of the pinvalves of both injectors during the opening step, as a function of thetime, to which there corresponds a bending or a non-controlled flexuraldeflection of the core 4, which increases over time. At the end of theinjection, the core 4 has the bent configuration—represented infictitiously enlarged form in FIG. 4 , with a displacement with respectto the non-deflected condition for example greater than 0.3 mm. Due tosuch deflection, the recipient C removed from the mould at the end ofthe injection has the structural defects exemplified in FIGS. 5 and 6 :the larger part thereof corresponding to the flexural deflected innerface of the core 4 (FIG. 5 ) has a thickness progressively decreasingfrom the end edge thereof towards the bottom, while the other largerwall corresponding to the flexural deflected outer face side of the core4 correspondingly has a thickness progressively increasing from the endedge thereof towards the bottom wall thereof. With a nominal wallthickness equivalent to 2 mm the less or excess pressure variation canthus also be well above 10%, and this can be unacceptable.

FIGS. 7-11 are diagrams corresponding to FIGS. 2 to 6 regarding theinvention, i.e. with the help of the control of the displacement of thepin valve 8 of each injector 6 performed by the electronic unit 10. Suchcontrol, carried out independently for each actuator 9, regards theposition, speed, acceleration and stroke of the respective pin valve 8and it is based on signals coming from transducers suitable to detectthe flexural deflection of the core 4 during injection.

Such transducers can be of various types and they can be arranged indifferent areas. As regards the type, there can be used one or moredeflection transducers of the base of the core, such as thoseschematised with 11 in FIG. 1 , or one or more position transducers ofthe free end of the core (for example induction sensors), possibly alsocombined with each other and even with one or more pressure transducersof the injected plastic material. As regards their position, besideswhat has been already been indicated, the transducers can be arranged onthe core 4, on the die 3 and in the space comprised between the die 3and the core 4.

The control thus carried out by the electronic unit is such that thepossibly detected bending of the core 4 is corrected and eliminated,thus returning the core 4 to the non-deflected condition thereof, byacting on the flow rate and pressure of the plastic material supplied byone and/or the other injector 6.

The diagram of FIG. 8 shows a correction example: upon reaching amaximum value, the detected deflection of the core 4 is countered andeliminated towards the final step of the injection, so as to return thecore 4 to the initial non-deflected condition represented in FIG. 9 .Thus, the thickness of the larger walls of the recipient C, as indicatedin FIGS. 10 and 11 , is almost constant and substantially correspondingto the design nominal value (2 mm).

Obviously, the construction details and the embodiments of the apparatusfor implementing the method according to the invention may widely varywith respect to what has been described and illustrated, withoutdeparting from the scope of protection of the invention as described inthe claims that follow. Thus, for example, as previously clarified, thenumber and position of the injectors will depend on the shapes anddimensions of the articles to be moulded. In case of articles of smalldimensions, the injector may even be just one.

Furthermore, though the description explicitly refers to an entirelyautomatic control process, the scope of protection of the invention alsocovers a semi-automatic or manual methods, in which for example there iscarried out a first injection detecting any deflection, modifying theparameters of the or of each injector if necessary and then injection iscarried out a second time, any deflection is detected once again and thesubsequent adjustment of the injection parameters are carried out ifnecessary, up to eliminating it.

1. A plastic material injection moulding apparatus including a mouldhaving a die defining a cavity within which a core is inserted, theapparatus comprising: at least one pair of injectors, each including apin valve displaceable between a closing position and an openingposition for injecting the pressurized plastic material into a spacecomprised between the die and the core, an actuator for controllingdisplacement of the pin valve of the or of each of the pair ofinjectors, an electronic unit operatively connected to the actuator soas to displace the pin valve of the or of each of the pair of injectorsin a controlled fashion and adjust a pressure and/or a flow rate of theinjected plastic material, and at least one sensor designed to detectany flexural deflection of the core during injection and connected tosaid electronic unit, said electronic control unit, upon receiving asignal from said sensor indicative of flexural detection of the core,commanding the controlled displacement of the pin valve of the or ofeach of the pair of injectors by adjusting at least one among aposition, speed, acceleration and stroke of the pin valve so as toadjust the pressure and/or the flow rate of the injected plasticmaterial thereby reducing or eliminating such flexural deflection of thecore, wherein in order to detect the flexural deflection of the core, aposition of a free end thereof is measured, wherein the injecting thepressurized plastic material is carried out by the at least one pair ofinjectors facing the core at opposite sides thereof, and wherein the pinvalves facing the core at opposite sides thereof are separatelycontrolled and utilized to correct the detected flexural deflection ofthe core by adjusting, based on the detected flexural deflection, atleast one among the position, speed, acceleration and stroke of each pinvalve so as to adjust the pressure and/or the flow rate of the injectedplastic material.
 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said atleast one sensor is selected among a position transducer of a free endof the core, a pressure transducer of the injected plastic material, orcombinations thereof.
 3. The apparatus according to claim 2, whereinsaid position transducer of the free end of the core is of an inductiontype.
 4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said at least onesensor is positioned on the core.
 5. The apparatus according to claim 1,wherein said at least one sensor is installed on the die.
 6. Theapparatus according to claim 1, wherein said at least one sensor ispositioned in the space comprised between the die and the core.